FM13 at Mladost: Killed by second season syndrome

Yep, that’s it. A disastrous start to the season with no sign of halting and I’m out of there. I could have carried on but things don’t get much better after getting hammered by one of only two teams that were below us. We’re deep in the shit and there’s nothing I can do.

I had felt confident about pushing on this year. I felt that we had upgraded in every area – certainly that’s what my coaches and scouts were telling me. I’d upgraded the coaching staff too. I even added ex-Birmingham striker Nikola Zigic, who didn’t want a huge salary for some reason.

It all started to unravel just before the start of the season. News reports leaked suggesting Danish club AaB were interested in signing my keeper Sasa Stamenkovic, who was one of the best keepers in the SuperLeague. In the end he forced the departure. We got £575,000 for him but that’s not the point – we were fine financially. The problem was it was too late to do anything about – all the good freebie keepers went long ago, so I had to pay out £500,000 for another inferior player to replace him.

Then in the first game we were pretty poor and scabbed a lucky draw. But as usual FM hates you getting through a first game without injuries and this was no exception – my new right-back Djalic was ruled out for 3-4 months with a hamstring tear. I then had to spend another load of cash to bring someone in, and let midfielder Jovan Golic go out on loan to make room. I bought Mladenovic, who has been pretty awful, along with my new left back Ignatijevic. We started shipping goals and not scoring them. And that’s always bad news.

I annoyed the board by applying for the Brighton job, but despite apologising and not getting the job, things were already looking bleak. We drew Red Star in the cup, which is pretty much guaranteed elimination – we had nearly held on for a point against them in the league fixture, but conceded a last minute winner. Everything was going against us. When FM13 decides it hates, you it decides it really hates you.

I don’t believe I was doing a bad job. I don’t believe my signings were bad. But the results were awful, I’d lost the dressing room, the fans didn’t appreciate me and I wasn’t getting any job offers despite doing a bloody good job in the first two season. So it’s time to go.